Portability and development speed are what drive it for me. Most of what I code is for log parsing, network device configuration, and reporting. To that end, I have never seen a need to look too far beyond Perl. It does everything I need with very minimal effort and development time, even for reasonably complex projects. Still, when Perl code becomes too large to work with effectively even after breaking down individual tasks, I change languages.
I think the point is "which tool fits the current need best." Far too many people seem to want to use a hammer when a screwdriver would work better out of potentially misguided allegiances. Languages are no different than any other tool.
I suspect TFA is more 'overrated' than 'insightful' since it makes some gross generalizations, cites search results as indicators of popularity, and completely neglects some of the nicer features of the popular scripting languages.
I stopped watching TV about ten years ago. I had spent a year and a half in South Korea on non-stop field exercises in the Army and then was honorably discharged and shipped back to the US. After being away from any TV for so long, I found that I just couldn't stand to sit in front of the box idly staring at it. It really bugged me on a fundamental level to see how it panders to the lowest common denominator of society. I never looked back.
Occasionally a friend will recommend a particularly good show to me, and I might watch it on DVD though. I can honestly count the number of shows on four fingers though that this is true for over a decade. Babylon 5 Deadwood Battlestar Galactica (the new one) Heroes
I didn't quit out of a hatred for the media conglomerates or for any lofty ideal. I quit just because after stepping away for a while, I think you see it for what it really is when you come back.
I have been playing WoW since the week of release. The way I keep my head clear is to just step away for a few weeks to a month at a time. It was hard the first time.. leaving the heavy raiding scene and the comfortable routines, but it was not worth the frustration or anger I would feel when things would go badly. I missed it like hell for the first couple of weeks, then I just stopped thinking about it. Once you can sit on the computer surfing, playing music, and just chatting with people without thinking about WoW, you are ready to come back if you are so inclined.
To this day I take extended "vacations" from WoW when I find myself starting to schedule my life around it or getting actually angry about it. This works out to one month off every 4 to 6 or so... I find it keeps me balanced.
Comcast is the only choice for most of Houston. We used to have Time Warner, which never gave me any problems over the 9 years I had them as my provider. Then through some backroom sweetheart deal, Comcast took over the market here and Time Warner got the more lucrative Dallas market.
Now all of us here are stuck with Comcast with no recourse. uVerse coverage is spotty at best and AT&T will give no ETA for service. FIOS is non-existent for most of the area as well. Your choice really boils down to Comcast or nothing, so we take Comcast.
Since the switch, the service levels have plummeted into the abyss. What used to be a loss of signal once a year or less under Time Warner has gone to weekly outages of TV and internet service for hours at a time with no explanation and rudeness by the service reps. The technical support is so amazingly bad that my girlfriend was actually cursed at by one of their managers over the phone. It was unbelievable. Website availability really is hit and miss during peak hours. Torrents run at about 1/4 of the speed they used to run at.
I can't even pay my bill online. If the account services aren't down, the link keeps moving deceptively deeper into the site, and half the time the system doesn't recognize that I even have service at my address. "No account found"
The fact that this company even continues to exist and get away with its predatory practices and horrific service is a testament to the corruption of the FCC.
While punch cards were still an option, we actually carried our code around on tape reels that you had to wait in obscenely long lines to have mounted for you. It would seem like a pain in the ass, but it was kind of a social meeting-ground for the computer geeks and no one seemed to mind. Great conversations, running commentary on the few women in the department, and comparing notes on BBS dialups and number swapping..
It's hard to imagine things like that now. Everyone just slaps in their USB sticks and moves on. Things were a bit more social, a bit more fun, and a bit more weird back then.
That is actually a pretty cool set of graphs! It even includes board and card games in the breakdown, which skews the numbers a bit but doesn't affect PC vs Console much. I wonder if they include pencil and paper D&D in that category... The composition of the two grouping does make sense with strategy and RPGs dominating the computer market and action/sports giving huge market share to consoles. The treadmill of Madden games, NBA titles, and various other sport titles are definitely changing the playing field (pun not intended).
The disparity in video game vs computer is pretty huge though, and I concede to your previous statements.
I am most surprised to see the gap closing on FPS games between computer and console. The computer interface is just so much more responsive, but perhaps that is my age showing and not a reflection of general perception. Well, at least I can still beat my son in Counterstrike.
Hardcore gaming is moving away from the PC, too, to consoles. Casual gaming has already largely moved away from the PC, except for Flash stuff that doesn't need Vista. Ten million World of Warcraft subscribers would disagree with this assertion.
I agree with your other points regarding resource usage, but to say that gamers are moving to the simplistic control system and limited capabilities of consoles during a time when MMOs and FPS games reign supreme seems incorrect.
Whether or not Vista is a success is largely inconsequential to the bottom line of Microsoft. Sure they dumped some money into the programmer's coffers to write it, but that code can be used in later versions or cherrypicked for other projects so it is absolutely not a waste.
Microsoft's revenue stream from licensing continues unabated. For example, the company I work for runs mostly XP and has skipped Vista entirely. That doesn't really change the bulk licensing tribute we pay Microsoft each year. We pay per seat and the OS really doesn't matter. Especially if you compare the costs of licensing for SQL, 2003 Servers, Exchange, Office, etc. Whether or not we run Vista doesn't mean jack, the desktop machine is still running a seat of a Microsoft OS.
Microsoft's money maker isn't the guy standing in Best Buy wondering if he needs to upgrade his perfectly usable XP system to this new OS, it's the large companies that pay yearly tribute in bulk licensing costs to maintain their large install-base of Microsoft Products that range from the datacenter to the spreadsheet on the secretaries' desk.
They would risk jailtime to put the one person into power that can pardon them of all wrongdoing with a stroke of a pen?
Makes sense to me. How long before this starts to happen? The electoral college is a joke, and still doesn't represent voters evenly across statelines.
My district in southeast Texas uses pure touch-screen systems. We have for the last couple of elections actually.
As far as I know there is no paper-trail whatsoever, as when I leave the booth I have nothing in my hand and nothing other than the large friendly letters on the screen thanking me for my vote.
So don't install it if you disagree with the EULA.
Your delusions of persecution are cute, but comparing the Windows EULA with the grotesque excesses of the end of the Industrial Revolution is just naive and improper. People don't die from EULAs. There are other Operating Systems out there. If you feel so vehemently about one, I would suggest not using that particular one.
I am glad to see the youth of today questioning what is going on in the world. It gives me hope. Just please try to keep things in perspective.
Like this: I have played on Laughing Skull since release. My guild was running Ony/MC on Friday nights exclusively and ZG on Sunday not that long ago. Then the lag became so unbearable that we were forced to make a change. I am MH for my guild, and I can tell you that when casting Renew on the MT takes 6 seconds, there are going to be problems. It got so bad near the end that Domo and his priests/guards were popping all over our screens like they were on speedhacks. So,we moved Ony/MC to Thursday, and ZG to Tuesday. Less lag, less problems, less issues with login queues holding up start times for these raids.
The logic is not inescapable. We didn't go ask the other guilds "Hey, would you mind changing your schedule?", we just shifted ours. We are not the only ones either. I can name three other guilds that shifted their heavy raids to weeknights off the top of my head as well. This is not rocket science.
Typical 'omgnoob' reponse. At least have the decency to post from your account.
The particular ability that you are (humorously enough, given your condescending tone) whining about yourself happens to be a 31pt talent in the demonology line. This is a line that most warlocks do not spec past Improved Imp and Demonic Embrace since it is largely a waste of points outside of PVE. I don't know what server you play on, but I am betting it is not a PVP server. My first character ever was a warlock, and despite server moves and faction changes, I have always carried a warlock in my arsenal. I have survived more nerfs than any other class out there with the possible exception of hunters and still keep on trucking with not a single complaint in the WOW forums. Because..... You see, and this really is the rub, you can choose to roll any class you like that is available for your faction. There is no limit to the number of characters you can play. So, if I was really complaining about my class being weaker than another class in all respects, what would stop me (or you) from rolling one of those??
Regardless, I never said "omg teh warlocks r gimpd!!1" If you read my post again instead of responding in a typical immature kneejerk fashion, you'll see that I was posting answers to the parent about why more locks don't run with their Felhunters and spam Hellfire periodically. You'll also notice that I mentioned that I play a rogue myself, among the many other characters I have and play daily.
Please post constructively or not at all. The kiddie forums are available to you at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/ if you want to post more 'learn to play your class' business. You will have more company and sympathy there.
a) Paranoia was broken two patches ago. (at least) Still not fixed to where it was, and requires a Felhunter to be out which no warlock in his right mind is going to be using for PVE since we need damage or tanking and not debuffs and mana drains. Sorry to break it to you. That is the reason you see the Voidwalkers, Imps, and Sucubii instead of the Felhunter. b) Hellfire actually hits the warlock for damage as well as any close targets.
When I am on my warlock, the last thing I want to do when I suspect a rogue in the area is to damage myself. I think you mean Rain of Fire here, which is a channeled Area of Effect spell. The area is very small though and would only catch the rogue as he was already close enough to ambush anyway.
I know the rogue-mains like to pretend they are not overpowered, but as a player that has played every class in the game now but shamans (including my own rogue instance/cash farmer), I can say without reservation that rogues have incredible DPS and more escape mechanisms than is needed. When I play my rogue, I enjoy it as much as you obviously do, so this is not an insult or a complaint. I'm just setting the facts down so you see the other side of the fence.
I also play a priest in WoW. A night elf level 51 Holy/Disc spec. I was shadow specced myself until level 48, and as one of the two priests in my guild I was needed for running Maraudon and Sunken Temple and the shadow spec just wasn't cutting it.
I've played WoW since release day first as Horde, and then moving to Alliance in February. As such, I can say with absolute certainty that there is no balance in this game. It extends so far beyond classes it's ridiculous. The server I play on, Laughing Skull, is populated almost entirely by undead whatevers and tauren shamans on the Horde side. Seeing a troll or an orc is a rarity indeed and usually a sign that the character was made near the release date. The Alliance side is populated almost entirely by night elf whatevers, human paladins, and gnome mages. Seeing an actual dwarf is rare and, once again, a hallmark of an older character.
That said, the biggest thing I would like to see is a buffing of the classes to match the classes that are obviously overpowered. I think the policy of the 'nerfstick' is the wrong approach. I have no chance of winning against an undead rogue under any circumstances on either my priest or my warlock. An even match between an undead anything and my priest results in my untimely demise as the only defense I have is counterable with just a click of an icon. The rock beats scissors, scissors beats paper approach is okay, but the undead represent the proverbial dynamite in that equation. The easiest method to equal out the balance issue here is to enable undead-effecting abilities against undead players. It's a buff, not a nerf, since Shackle Undead and its ilk only holds until someone hits them or drops a DoT on them. There are useful answers to these problems offered daily in the forums, but Blizzard by and large ignores the community and proceeds on it's own path. Thus the buffing of the demonology line of warlocks "to fix them", when not a single warlock I know (mine own included) uses the demonology line since it is useless in PVP.
The "Players losing control" is a stupid lie that Blizz continues to perpetuate. Fear makes you lose control. Mind Control most assuredly makes you lose control for a long time! I've used it myself to throw players off the cliffs of Freewind to their death. Stun locking makes you lose control for the length of time it takes to kill you. When I get stunlocked by a rogue, I usually just get up and go grab a drink. There is no point in trying to click anything except the "6 Minutes Until Release" box.
PVP as a healing class in WoW is laughable at best. Since Battlegrounds came out, I have spent more than a few hours in Alterac trying to keep my raid alive. The end result is always the same. The opposition charges through the ranks spamming AoE's like mad, and then targets all priests in the group with/assist macros for a death so fast I can't even pop a shield. This is a viable and intelligent tactic, it's just fairly unrewarding to spend more time at the graveyard watching the res timers tick than actually participating in any meaningful battle.
I understand what you are saying. I have never called for the nerf stick, nor do I think that is an answer to the players who cry in the General forums that they got killed by a better player in another class. Nerfing is not the answer. It -is- Blizz's answer however to a lot of problems that don't exist outside of whiny little kids' ranting posts.
That said: As a former rogue, I feel somewhat justified in saying they are overpowered. I am a big enough person to recognize it for what it is. This is the reason I quit playing my rogue. If I had only played one or two classes, then you would be correct in your assessment. However I have played every class in the game now except Shamans. There is not a single class that definitevely stands out in my mind as being completely overpowered other than rogue. Even a poorly played rogue will still be able to go toe-to-toe with mobs levels higher, or elites of the same level and win hands-down. I know I was able to with no trouble.
That said, I am not bleating like a sheep. There was no call for nerfs or other implied whines in my post. Just the observations that are verifiable with a simple/who in any zone.
You have a valid and insightful point. I must admit I am somewhat spoiled, as my new main since moving to Laughing Skull a month ago, is a priest. I can count the number of groups I have been turned away from in 44 levels on two fingers. When I played my rogue, I was continually turned away unless I knew someone in the group, and my old warlock main was about 50/50 on getting into instance runs.
That said: As a priest: Much love to the warriors! You keep us alive.
Hopefully the eventual release of Battlegrounds will defer some of the player farming away from the questing zones.
The problem is that they have implemented an Honor system, that rewards players for continual ganking, without the supplementary Dishonor system to discourage griefing.
--There are rich rewards to be had for slaughtering any and all opponents of roughly the same level. --There are no penalties for slaughtering any and all oppenents of lower levels.
While I realize that there was no discouragment before to stop this.. my priest still bears the scars of Stranglethorn Vale, what many fear this will lead to is roaming armadas of factions farming Honor points by killing everything in sight. I see this being the most likely outcome.
The server populations had already become overrun with NightElf and Undead stunlock rogues. There are more rogues than any other single class, as they are vastly overpowered for levelling and moreover singularly designed for wholesale murder (I used to play a rogue myself, before I retired him out of disgust for the easy win). Now, instead of farming instances and working toward saving money for great items, they can simply take the low road and farm players trying to simply quest and level a little.
Blizzard has done a major disservice to the player community, and I feel the ramifications of this will resound within the userbase as characters are dropped in favor of more rogues. They have already nerfed most of the classes into oblivion and back, this just justifies my belief that Blizzard developers do not play on live PvP servers and see what we see. I suspect that my time will be spent on a PvE server very soon.
Before you fire off a reply with a 'STFU n00b' or 'Cry some more' consider carefully how difficult it will be to run Molten Core, Maraudon, Dire Maul, Stratholm, and the like when you have effectively discouraged most other classes from levelling other than rogues.
I'm going to have to agree on the name of the server determining the balance. This is especially true on the PvP servers. I play Alliance on Burning Legion about 90% of the time. There seem to be a lot more Horde than Alliance playing there. Also, I occasionally get a chance to play alongside my best friend as Horde on Laughing Skull, and that seems to be more Horde than Alliance as well. I'd like to see hard numbers for this though.
I think the key here, and the point the parent poster was trying to make is that "it's not our country". Morality is not even a factor in this equation. That is their country and their internal dispute, and no other country has the right to intervene. That's why there are these things called 'borders'. Somehow this philosophy has been lost on recent administrations but it's validity exists nonetheless.
What repurcussions can these schoolyard bullies really throw at you? Seriously. I use slackware at home. What are they going to do if I refuse to pay them one red cent? Throw me in jail? The legal costs of actually suing each and every linux user are cost-prohibitive to the meager licensing fees they can dream up. Even if I choose to represent myself, just to save the money, they still have to pay for legal exepenses as well as flights/hotels/cars/etc for each case. Can you say "not fucking likely"? They're just blowing FUD.
To paraphrase the NRA (a highly successful, if not a bit misguided group): They can have my slackware disks when they pull them out of my incarcerated hand.
Make them press charges for not paying. The legal costs of attacking end-users would be fucking staggering. Bullies always prey on the small guy to mask their own insecurity. The only way to stop the schoolyard bully is to not be scared of him. To paraphrase another misguided soul "Bring 'em on". Fuck SCO.
There was still a lot of min/maxing and THAC0 manipulation going on... i can't imagine how bad it would have been if we were actually following the rules!
Well, if you had, then you would have figured out that you could generate a Drow Bladesinger at level 1, with no magic items or fudging other than a semi-decent initial rollup, that started with a THAC0 of 14. If you played Planescape, you could push that margin a bit further with a tweak of race. Ah the memories of my cuisinart-fu tiefling. Too bad I sold all my books just before 3 came out.. not enough time anymore with the kiddo.
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Portability and development speed are what drive it for me. Most of what I code is for log parsing, network device configuration, and reporting. To that end, I have never seen a need to look too far beyond Perl. It does everything I need with very minimal effort and development time, even for reasonably complex projects. Still, when Perl code becomes too large to work with effectively even after breaking down individual tasks, I change languages.
I think the point is "which tool fits the current need best." Far too many people seem to want to use a hammer when a screwdriver would work better out of potentially misguided allegiances. Languages are no different than any other tool.
I suspect TFA is more 'overrated' than 'insightful' since it makes some gross generalizations, cites search results as indicators of popularity, and completely neglects some of the nicer features of the popular scripting languages.
I did as well.
I stopped watching TV about ten years ago. I had spent a year and a half in South Korea on non-stop field exercises in the Army and then was honorably discharged and shipped back to the US. After being away from any TV for so long, I found that I just couldn't stand to sit in front of the box idly staring at it. It really bugged me on a fundamental level to see how it panders to the lowest common denominator of society. I never looked back.
Occasionally a friend will recommend a particularly good show to me, and I might watch it on DVD though. I can honestly count the number of shows on four fingers though that this is true for over a decade.
Babylon 5
Deadwood
Battlestar Galactica (the new one)
Heroes
I didn't quit out of a hatred for the media conglomerates or for any lofty ideal. I quit just because after stepping away for a while, I think you see it for what it really is when you come back.
You need to step away then.
I have been playing WoW since the week of release. The way I keep my head clear is to just step away for a few weeks to a month at a time. It was hard the first time.. leaving the heavy raiding scene and the comfortable routines, but it was not worth the frustration or anger I would feel when things would go badly. I missed it like hell for the first couple of weeks, then I just stopped thinking about it. Once you can sit on the computer surfing, playing music, and just chatting with people without thinking about WoW, you are ready to come back if you are so inclined.
To this day I take extended "vacations" from WoW when I find myself starting to schedule my life around it or getting actually angry about it. This works out to one month off every 4 to 6 or so... I find it keeps me balanced.
If I go 4 days without logging in.. I don't care.
Give it a shot and see how it works out.
Comcast is the only choice for most of Houston. We used to have Time Warner, which never gave me any problems over the 9 years I had them as my provider. Then through some backroom sweetheart deal, Comcast took over the market here and Time Warner got the more lucrative Dallas market.
Now all of us here are stuck with Comcast with no recourse. uVerse coverage is spotty at best and AT&T will give no ETA for service. FIOS is non-existent for most of the area as well. Your choice really boils down to Comcast or nothing, so we take Comcast.
Since the switch, the service levels have plummeted into the abyss. What used to be a loss of signal once a year or less under Time Warner has gone to weekly outages of TV and internet service for hours at a time with no explanation and rudeness by the service reps. The technical support is so amazingly bad that my girlfriend was actually cursed at by one of their managers over the phone. It was unbelievable. Website availability really is hit and miss during peak hours. Torrents run at about 1/4 of the speed they used to run at.
I can't even pay my bill online. If the account services aren't down, the link keeps moving deceptively deeper into the site, and half the time the system doesn't recognize that I even have service at my address. "No account found"
The fact that this company even continues to exist and get away with its predatory practices and horrific service is a testament to the corruption of the FCC.
FORTRAN was my first language I took at college.
While punch cards were still an option, we actually carried our code around on tape reels that you had to wait in obscenely long lines to have mounted for you. It would seem like a pain in the ass, but it was kind of a social meeting-ground for the computer geeks and no one seemed to mind. Great conversations, running commentary on the few women in the department, and comparing notes on BBS dialups and number swapping..
It's hard to imagine things like that now. Everyone just slaps in their USB sticks and moves on. Things were a bit more social, a bit more fun, and a bit more weird back then.
That is actually a pretty cool set of graphs! It even includes board and card games in the breakdown, which skews the numbers a bit but doesn't affect PC vs Console much. I wonder if they include pencil and paper D&D in that category... The composition of the two grouping does make sense with strategy and RPGs dominating the computer market and action/sports giving huge market share to consoles. The treadmill of Madden games, NBA titles, and various other sport titles are definitely changing the playing field (pun not intended).
The disparity in video game vs computer is pretty huge though, and I concede to your previous statements.
I am most surprised to see the gap closing on FPS games between computer and console. The computer interface is just so much more responsive, but perhaps that is my age showing and not a reflection of general perception. Well, at least I can still beat my son in Counterstrike.
I agree with your other points regarding resource usage, but to say that gamers are moving to the simplistic control system and limited capabilities of consoles during a time when MMOs and FPS games reign supreme seems incorrect.
I read it a little differently.
Whether or not Vista is a success is largely inconsequential to the bottom line of Microsoft. Sure they dumped some money into the programmer's coffers to write it, but that code can be used in later versions or cherrypicked for other projects so it is absolutely not a waste.
Microsoft's revenue stream from licensing continues unabated. For example, the company I work for runs mostly XP and has skipped Vista entirely. That doesn't really change the bulk licensing tribute we pay Microsoft each year. We pay per seat and the OS really doesn't matter. Especially if you compare the costs of licensing for SQL, 2003 Servers, Exchange, Office, etc. Whether or not we run Vista doesn't mean jack, the desktop machine is still running a seat of a Microsoft OS.
Microsoft's money maker isn't the guy standing in Best Buy wondering if he needs to upgrade his perfectly usable XP system to this new OS, it's the large companies that pay yearly tribute in bulk licensing costs to maintain their large install-base of Microsoft Products that range from the datacenter to the spreadsheet on the secretaries' desk.
I think you meant well, but your delivery just makes you look like an arrogant little shit.
They would risk jailtime to put the one person into power that can pardon them of all wrongdoing with a stroke of a pen?
Makes sense to me. How long before this starts to happen? The electoral college is a joke, and still doesn't represent voters evenly across statelines.
Check this out if you would like more information on the discrepancy: http://www.vastlyimportant.com/vastly/files/vote_power.htm
This should make factoring the optimum escape path from the impending zombie apocalypse trivial!
Does it account for transmission of pathogen by saliva?
My district in southeast Texas uses pure touch-screen systems. We have for the last couple of elections actually.
As far as I know there is no paper-trail whatsoever, as when I leave the booth I have nothing in my hand and nothing other than the large friendly letters on the screen thanking me for my vote.
So don't install it if you disagree with the EULA.
Your delusions of persecution are cute, but comparing the Windows EULA with the grotesque excesses of the end of the Industrial Revolution is just naive and improper. People don't die from EULAs. There are other Operating Systems out there. If you feel so vehemently about one, I would suggest not using that particular one.
I am glad to see the youth of today questioning what is going on in the world. It gives me hope. Just please try to keep things in perspective.
Like this: I have played on Laughing Skull since release. My guild was running Ony/MC on Friday nights exclusively and ZG on Sunday not that long ago. Then the lag became so unbearable that we were forced to make a change. I am MH for my guild, and I can tell you that when casting Renew on the MT takes 6 seconds, there are going to be problems. It got so bad near the end that Domo and his priests/guards were popping all over our screens like they were on speedhacks. So,we moved Ony/MC to Thursday, and ZG to Tuesday. Less lag, less problems, less issues with login queues holding up start times for these raids.
The logic is not inescapable. We didn't go ask the other guilds "Hey, would you mind changing your schedule?", we just shifted ours. We are not the only ones either. I can name three other guilds that shifted their heavy raids to weeknights off the top of my head as well. This is not rocket science.
TRON!!
Now report to the game grid!
Typical 'omgnoob' reponse. At least have the decency to post from your account.
The particular ability that you are (humorously enough, given your condescending tone) whining about yourself happens to be a 31pt talent in the demonology line. This is a line that most warlocks do not spec past Improved Imp and Demonic Embrace since it is largely a waste of points outside of PVE. I don't know what server you play on, but I am betting it is not a PVP server. My first character ever was a warlock, and despite server moves and faction changes, I have always carried a warlock in my arsenal. I have survived more nerfs than any other class out there with the possible exception of hunters and still keep on trucking with not a single complaint in the WOW forums. Because.....
You see, and this really is the rub, you can choose to roll any class you like that is available for your faction. There is no limit to the number of characters you can play. So, if I was really complaining about my class being weaker than another class in all respects, what would stop me (or you) from rolling one of those??
Regardless, I never said "omg teh warlocks r gimpd!!1" If you read my post again instead of responding in a typical immature kneejerk fashion, you'll see that I was posting answers to the parent about why more locks don't run with their Felhunters and spam Hellfire periodically. You'll also notice that I mentioned that I play a rogue myself, among the many other characters I have and play daily.
Please post constructively or not at all. The kiddie forums are available to you at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/ if you want to post more 'learn to play your class' business. You will have more company and sympathy there.
a) Paranoia was broken two patches ago. (at least) Still not fixed to where it was, and requires a Felhunter to be out which no warlock in his right mind is going to be using for PVE since we need damage or tanking and not debuffs and mana drains. Sorry to break it to you. That is the reason you see the Voidwalkers, Imps, and Sucubii instead of the Felhunter.
b) Hellfire actually hits the warlock for damage as well as any close targets.
When I am on my warlock, the last thing I want to do when I suspect a rogue in the area is to damage myself. I think you mean Rain of Fire here, which is a channeled Area of Effect spell. The area is very small though and would only catch the rogue as he was already close enough to ambush anyway.
I know the rogue-mains like to pretend they are not overpowered, but as a player that has played every class in the game now but shamans (including my own rogue instance/cash farmer), I can say without reservation that rogues have incredible DPS and more escape mechanisms than is needed. When I play my rogue, I enjoy it as much as you obviously do, so this is not an insult or a complaint. I'm just setting the facts down so you see the other side of the fence.
I also play a priest in WoW. A night elf level 51 Holy/Disc spec. I was shadow specced myself until level 48, and as one of the two priests in my guild I was needed for running Maraudon and Sunken Temple and the shadow spec just wasn't cutting it.
/assist macros for a death so fast I can't even pop a shield. This is a viable and intelligent tactic, it's just fairly unrewarding to spend more time at the graveyard watching the res timers tick than actually participating in any meaningful battle.
I've played WoW since release day first as Horde, and then moving to Alliance in February. As such, I can say with absolute certainty that there is no balance in this game. It extends so far beyond classes it's ridiculous. The server I play on, Laughing Skull, is populated almost entirely by undead whatevers and tauren shamans on the Horde side. Seeing a troll or an orc is a rarity indeed and usually a sign that the character was made near the release date. The Alliance side is populated almost entirely by night elf whatevers, human paladins, and gnome mages. Seeing an actual dwarf is rare and, once again, a hallmark of an older character.
That said, the biggest thing I would like to see is a buffing of the classes to match the classes that are obviously overpowered. I think the policy of the 'nerfstick' is the wrong approach. I have no chance of winning against an undead rogue under any circumstances on either my priest or my warlock. An even match between an undead anything and my priest results in my untimely demise as the only defense I have is counterable with just a click of an icon. The rock beats scissors, scissors beats paper approach is okay, but the undead represent the proverbial dynamite in that equation. The easiest method to equal out the balance issue here is to enable undead-effecting abilities against undead players. It's a buff, not a nerf, since Shackle Undead and its ilk only holds until someone hits them or drops a DoT on them. There are useful answers to these problems offered daily in the forums, but Blizzard by and large ignores the community and proceeds on it's own path. Thus the buffing of the demonology line of warlocks "to fix them", when not a single warlock I know (mine own included) uses the demonology line since it is useless in PVP.
The "Players losing control" is a stupid lie that Blizz continues to perpetuate. Fear makes you lose control. Mind Control most assuredly makes you lose control for a long time! I've used it myself to throw players off the cliffs of Freewind to their death. Stun locking makes you lose control for the length of time it takes to kill you. When I get stunlocked by a rogue, I usually just get up and go grab a drink. There is no point in trying to click anything except the "6 Minutes Until Release" box.
PVP as a healing class in WoW is laughable at best. Since Battlegrounds came out, I have spent more than a few hours in Alterac trying to keep my raid alive. The end result is always the same. The opposition charges through the ranks spamming AoE's like mad, and then targets all priests in the group with
I understand what you are saying. I have never called for the nerf stick, nor do I think that is an answer to the players who cry in the General forums that they got killed by a better player in another class. Nerfing is not the answer. It -is- Blizz's answer however to a lot of problems that don't exist outside of whiny little kids' ranting posts.
/who in any zone.
That said: As a former rogue, I feel somewhat justified in saying they are overpowered. I am a big enough person to recognize it for what it is. This is the reason I quit playing my rogue. If I had only played one or two classes, then you would be correct in your assessment. However I have played every class in the game now except Shamans. There is not a single class that definitevely stands out in my mind as being completely overpowered other than rogue. Even a poorly played rogue will still be able to go toe-to-toe with mobs levels higher, or elites of the same level and win hands-down. I know I was able to with no trouble.
That said, I am not bleating like a sheep. There was no call for nerfs or other implied whines in my post. Just the observations that are verifiable with a simple
You have a valid and insightful point. I must admit I am somewhat spoiled, as my new main since moving to Laughing Skull a month ago, is a priest. I can count the number of groups I have been turned away from in 44 levels on two fingers. When I played my rogue, I was continually turned away unless I knew someone in the group, and my old warlock main was about 50/50 on getting into instance runs.
That said: As a priest: Much love to the warriors! You keep us alive.
Hopefully the eventual release of Battlegrounds will defer some of the player farming away from the questing zones.
The problem is that they have implemented an Honor system, that rewards players for continual ganking, without the supplementary Dishonor system to discourage griefing.
--There are rich rewards to be had for slaughtering any and all opponents of roughly the same level.
--There are no penalties for slaughtering any and all oppenents of lower levels.
While I realize that there was no discouragment before to stop this.. my priest still bears the scars of Stranglethorn Vale, what many fear this will lead to is roaming armadas of factions farming Honor points by killing everything in sight. I see this being the most likely outcome.
The server populations had already become overrun with NightElf and Undead stunlock rogues. There are more rogues than any other single class, as they are vastly overpowered for levelling and moreover singularly designed for wholesale murder (I used to play a rogue myself, before I retired him out of disgust for the easy win). Now, instead of farming instances and working toward saving money for great items, they can simply take the low road and farm players trying to simply quest and level a little.
Blizzard has done a major disservice to the player community, and I feel the ramifications of this will resound within the userbase as characters are dropped in favor of more rogues. They have already nerfed most of the classes into oblivion and back, this just justifies my belief that Blizzard developers do not play on live PvP servers and see what we see. I suspect that my time will be spent on a PvE server very soon.
Before you fire off a reply with a 'STFU n00b' or 'Cry some more' consider carefully how difficult it will be to run Molten Core, Maraudon, Dire Maul, Stratholm, and the like when you have effectively discouraged most other classes from levelling other than rogues.
I'm going to have to agree on the name of the server determining the balance. This is especially true on the PvP servers. I play Alliance on Burning Legion about 90% of the time. There seem to be a lot more Horde than Alliance playing there. Also, I occasionally get a chance to play alongside my best friend as Horde on Laughing Skull, and that seems to be more Horde than Alliance as well. I'd like to see hard numbers for this though.
I think the key here, and the point the parent poster was trying to make is that "it's not our country". Morality is not even a factor in this equation. That is their country and their internal dispute, and no other country has the right to intervene. That's why there are these things called 'borders'. Somehow this philosophy has been lost on recent administrations but it's validity exists nonetheless.
What repurcussions can these schoolyard bullies really throw at you? Seriously. I use slackware at home. What are they going to do if I refuse to pay them one red cent? Throw me in jail? The legal costs of actually suing each and every linux user are cost-prohibitive to the meager licensing fees they can dream up. Even if I choose to represent myself, just to save the money, they still have to pay for legal exepenses as well as flights/hotels/cars/etc for each case. Can you say "not fucking likely"? They're just blowing FUD.
To paraphrase the NRA (a highly successful, if not a bit misguided group):
They can have my slackware disks when they pull them out of my incarcerated hand.
Make them press charges for not paying. The legal costs of attacking end-users would be fucking staggering. Bullies always prey on the small guy to mask their own insecurity. The only way to stop the schoolyard bully is to not be scared of him. To paraphrase another misguided soul "Bring 'em on". Fuck SCO.
There was still a lot of min/maxing and THAC0 manipulation going on... i can't imagine how bad it would have been if we were actually following the rules!
Well, if you had, then you would have figured out that you could generate a Drow Bladesinger at level 1, with no magic items or fudging other than a semi-decent initial rollup, that started with a THAC0 of 14. If you played Planescape, you could push that margin a bit further with a tweak of race. Ah the memories of my cuisinart-fu tiefling. Too bad I sold all my books just before 3 came out.. not enough time anymore with the kiddo.